Reading Week: The Purge

These are the stacks now.

There are also some on the dining table because no more will fit here without falling over and crushing me like some kind of bad Hoarders episode.

Folks, I am not messing around anymore.

Battle lines have been drawn.  My shelves and I declared war on all the books that weren't being actively used.  If I'm not actively reading something, it's on the chopping block.

Yes, the art books, too.

Yes, the sentimental ones.

Yes, the ones I haven't read yet.

Under my own rules, I can read them before they go.

So reading week was much needed.  It was also kind of insane.  I stopped even recording them on Goodreads, because I couldn't keep up.

I read things I abandoned.  (And abandoned some more.)

I read books I've been wanting to read for ages, but hadn't for some reason.

I read books that were for reference, and for skill-building.  (I took copious notes.)

I read books that I didn't remember buying.

I read books.

I'm down to about thirty in the queue, all nonfiction, all ones I want to pay close(er) attention to.

They'll be slower reads, which is why I wanted the "victory" of going through ones I knew I could cross off the list rapidly.  What's left are nature books, a few art books I plan on making a focus of an art week (and then passed on), some writing books, and a whole slew of spirit-based stuff.

And the fiction.  I still haven't even really touched the fiction.  But that's a much smaller stack than the nonfic I had on the ol' shelves.  Plus, I have much less of an issue letting go of fiction once I've read it.  I don't have the same mental block about it.

If you want to see what (most) of these were (before I stopped keeping track, at least), they're on the retreat page.

It's now writing week.

Honestly, I'm ignoring that a little.  I have a book I might try doing some prompts from, but really, I'm educating this week.  Getting through that stack of writing technique books and getting them moved on to other people.  (It's still ongoing education, right?) :)

I'm to the point where I'm feeling a wee bit sick of reading all the time, and simultaneously feeling that kind of desperate urge to just get this done already.  I've made a metric ton of progress already, but now that I can see the finish line in this one area, I'm ready to just be there.  To have the empty shelves and space to breathe.  To have just what I actually need and use.

It's just time.

p.s.
I'm keeping my field guides, The Wander Society by Keri Smith, Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin, and Women Who Run with the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  So I won't be without any physical books.  (We also won't go there about my kindle books, which is more stuffed with titles than my shelves were.)

p.p.s.
I'm planning on putting together flat-rate priority boxes full of subject-separated books to sell, by the way.  Art, spirit, writing.  Keep an eye on Facebook for those.  (Any that don't sell are getting donated to the local Little Free Library, but there are too many right now to donate.) :)